Declare It Complete

There is something about this year-end that doesn’t feel complete to me.

Years ago I took a class on “completion” and realized that there is a huge difference between being finished and being complete.  Finished means that something has ended.  Complete means having all necessary parts, elements, or steps brought to an end and having it fully carried out.

In that class, several questions were raised that need to be answered in order to be complete with a situation, timeline, person or in this case, 2011.  They are:

1. 1.    What gave me pleasure?
   2.   What didn’t give me pleasure?
   3.   Who do I need to forgive (and for what)?
   4.   Who do I need to thank (and for what)?
   5.   Anything else I need to complete about this?

I know that if I have left some important thing in my life undone, or not done right, or if I don’t feel good about the job, I have to go back and revisit the situation.  That situation “weighs” on my mind and doesn’t allow me to move foreword into something new and different.  The accumulation of all of this is some of the baggage we carry in our lives and literally doesn’t allow us to excel or move into a place of success.  All of this baggage blinds us to our opportunity or possibility that always surrounds us. 

Christine Northrup tells us, “Creating anything new and fresh works much better if you mindfully ‘complete’ what is finished at the same time that you are dreaming up the new.”

Allowing yourself to not put any more energy into something that you cannot control or what you consider unremarkable, declare it complete and let it go.  It is the only way to free up the energy you need to move forward in your life.


Happy New Year!

Choices

Currently, I am reading a book called “You Are Your Choices,” by Alexandra Stoddard.  She quotes Albert Camus as saying, “Life is the sum of all your choices.”  This being the end of the year always causes me to think about the choices I made during the year that have brought me to this place at this time.

A year ago, the place I was in was sheer misery for me.  I was in the throws of still grieving for a husband that made his transition in April.  I was feeling the stress of not being able to handle all of the issues of being an active pulpit, spiritual leader.  And I was not feeling strong enough to stay with a spiritual practice to get through what it was that I was feeling.  It truly was being between a rock and a hard place. 

Deciding what and how life is to be is not an easy process.  At that time, all I knew was what I didn’t want.  Universal law states that that is equally as creative as knowing what it is that you want.  I knew I had to get out of that state very quickly as I didn’t want to create more misery than I already had. 

What did I want?  Choices.  Decisions.  What direction to go?  The first thing I did was to tender my resignation.  Second, I took the time to breathe.  During this time, I went through a period of pure terror.  Suddenly, I no longer felt secure in the house I was living in, couldn’t sleep through the night, and heard every noise in the neighborhood as if it was outside the house. 

It took a dental appointment to “wake” me up.  My dentist told me that I needed help and to call my primary care doctor immediately.  Wow!  Okay.  I got home and thought about it and decided that for years I taught people how to create a new life.  I could become my own student and figure this out.

Figure it out I did.  I sat down with pen and paper and decided how I wanted life to be.  I knew I wanted a committed, life companion.  I wanted to travel and explore the countryside.  I listed all of the things I ever wanted and decided with a vengeance, that I could create it all. 

Waking up one morning recently, I was feeling something totally different and I had to dig to figure out what it was that was going on.  Glory be!  I woke up happy and I didn’t know what it was at first. Happy!  Yahoo! 

So, most of my choices are now a reality for me and what this has taught me is that it is time to make some more really good choices for 2012.  The week between Christmas and New Year is a good time for me to do that.  I will consciously close 2011 and make room for something new and different in order to experience even more good – more of my good choices for 2012. 

Happy New Year.

Stop and Think

In the one-minute tip that was written by Coach Philip Humbert recently, he says, “In the Age of Distraction, the key to success is being able to resist the evolutionary desire to grab hold of every new thing. This is hard and goes against our natural tendencies. It takes determination and uncommon discipline to simplify life, choose one or two priorities and stick with them. High achievers know this! So should you.”

This is a key lesson whether we are in the process of buying Christmas presents or furniture shopping or just grazing through catalogues or checking out the latest electronic gadgets.  Learning how to say “no” and “enough is enough,” is one of the hardest lessons I ever had to learn. 

It doesn’t matter what you call us collectors or hoarders, saying “no” to our obsession or resisting to “upgrade” is hard.  We all want the latest and greatest because we don’t want to be “left behind.”

For those of us who want to experience a greater sense of financial freedom, we need to remember the words “never invest in something depreciable.”  Great advise if you can “afford” it.  In looking around my environment, there isn’t anything that is appreciating in value.  The more I looked at this, the more I realized that this is something that I haven’t paid much attention to in the past.

The key to this, is the past.  Having moved recently and combining households with a new life partner, the word “treasure” takes on a whole new meaning.  Treasures are only treasures if in the “value” someone else thinks it’s a treasure too.  In other words, your hand crafted hand imprinted ceramic tile is only valuable if someone else wants it.  Let me give you a clue here…when you are gone…what’s valuable in your heart is junk to someone else.  JUNK!  I know, I know, hard to believe that “they” cannot see the value in all of it. 

There are only a small select few who think that the rusted “dead” bike fender is valuable and you only see them on television when there is nothing else to watch.  How do you get in touch with them when you want to downsize or rightsize or want to simplify life? 

Whatever the process involved in simplifying life, simple, fun and easy doesn’t want to lend itself into my mental gymnastics.  Simplify, I must.